Aaron David Shannon (Photo courtesy of the Ramsey County sheriff's office)

A man who fled from police in a stolen car in 1996 -- he crashed into a limo and killed the driver on Interstate 94 in Minneapolis -- has been charged with stealing a car after he tried to outrun St. Paul police last week and got stuck in the snow.

No one was injured in the recent case.

The St. Paul man also is accused of stealing cellphones and tablets from stores in the metro area on 17 occasions in November and December, according to a criminal complaint filed Monday. The electronics were valued at more than $14,000.

The Ramsey County attorney's office charged the man as Aaron David Shannon, 41, but he goes by Donnie or Darren Shannon and is 35, police said. Police have a long list of aliases for him.

Shannon told police he was stealing to support his methamphetamine habit, a police report said.

While Shannon "is a typical booster (of stolen goods) who is driven by his addiction," one thing that set him apart is how prolific he's been recently, said St. Paul police Sgt. Charlie Anderson, who heads the department's Organized Retail Crimes unit.

Police also were worried "that his actions were going to become more and more brazen based on his behavior, his previous record and the frequency in which he was committing these crimes," Anderson said Monday.

Shannon's attorney didn't return a call seeking comment Monday.

Shannon, who a police report describes as 6 feet 6 inches tall and about 250 pounds, would sometimes use "brute force" to yank electronics from security devices, the report said.

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He also used a cutting tool to defeat security devices. Other times, he posed as a customer, asked to see a phone and ran off with it, the criminal complaint said.

Shannon wore a safety-reflective vest during some thefts and "thought he was being clever ... because he thought that wearing one would give him an air of authenticity and dissuade suspicion by cell store employees," a police report said.

Police said Shannon conducted research before the thefts -- 11 noted in the complaint occurred in St. Paul. The others were in Roseville, Maplewood, Mendota Heights, Eagan, Woodbury and Minneapolis. The thefts occurred at Radio Shack, T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and Boost Mobile.

Shannon would conduct Internet searches about store policies, the police report said, and he noted "that employees could get in trouble or fired for giving chase to thieves or attempting to apprehend them. ... Shannon recalled yelling at employees who tried to follow him, telling them that they were not supposed to do so."

He also mapped out cellphone stores, writing stores down and contemplating his actions, the report said. He said a store in Hastings wasn't worth "(expletive) with" because there was only "one way in, one way out," and the same was true of a Cottage Grove store, the report said.

Shannon told police he figured out when staffing levels would be low and when customer foot traffic would be heavy, "thus providing less opportunity to arouse suspicion," the report said.

Shannon sold the stolen electronics to fencing operations, the report said. He told police he could get $250 for a new iPhone. The ones he stole were valued at $400 to $650, the criminal complaint showed.

Shannon also "mentioned that someone (a fencing operation) had 'put an order out' for $3,000 in cellphones" and he "was looking to cash in on it," the report said.

Of the thefts, Shannon told the investigators "he did not feel much remorse because these items were taken from large corporations that had insurance which would cover the losses," the report said. When they "pointed out that some of these stores are franchises run by the 'little guy'/common man, Shannon stated that he might feel a little bad about that, but that these businesses still would have insurance."

Shannon was charged with theft and five counts of possession of burglary or theft tools. The Ramsey County attorney's office is reviewing additional charges against Shannon, a spokesman said.

When police arrested Shannon last week in the auto-theft case, he already was under investigation in the electronic thefts, a report said.

On Wednesday, a man later identified as Shannon went to Automart in Minneapolis and wanted to take a 1997 Oldsmobile 88 for a test drive, according to a criminal complaint filed Friday, charging him with motor vehicle theft.

He provided identification in the name of Lance Harris and keys to a BMW as collateral for the test drive. The company's policy is not to let people take cars unaccompanied and an employee prepared to take him, but turned around to see the Oldsmobile being driven out of the lot.

The car has a GPS tracker and, when the car hadn't been returned by 7 p.m., the owner reported it stolen to police. The owner tracked the stolen car and found it at Smith and Cherokee avenues, followed the car and updated police about its location. The car continued into West St. Paul. Police found it and approached it on foot on Logan Avenue near Robert Street.

An officer pointed his gun at Shannon and "shouted at the top of" his lungs, "POLICE! STOP THE CAR!!!!" a police report said.

Shannon "rapidly accelerated, driving through the stop sign (without stopping), and sped off ... in an attempt to elude us," the report said.

Another squad car pulled into Shannon's path, blocking Robert Street. Shannon quickly turned into a closed business' parking lot. The lot had not been plowed, and Shannon got stuck, "pushed on the gas and attempted to drive out of the lot in reverse" toward the officers' squad, but the car was stuck, the report said.

Shannon got out of prison March 3, when his sentence for his 1998 conviction of third-degree murder expired.

Police spotted Shannon and another man in a stolen car in Minneapolis in 1996 and an officer approached with his gun drawn.

Shannon swore at the officer, sped away, drove "the wrong way down several one-way streets," ran several red lights and headed the wrong way onto I-94, according to charges filed at the time. He collided head-on with a limousine driven by Brian Feist, 38, of Richfield, who was killed.